The present invention relates to a printing system for converting image information carried on a photographic film or an original into digital image information, storing thee digital image information in a computer or the like, and then reproducing an image based on the image information from the computer, using a liquid crystal shutter matrix panel.
Heretofore, DPE systems are used to print images carried on photographic films. Printouts produced by the DPE systems are sufficiently fine even if the printed images are continuous-tone images. Therefore, the images reproduced by the DPE systems are highly faithful to the original images. However, the DPE systems are unable to process original images and print processed images. For example, it is impossible for a DPE system to remove an unnecessary background image, correct a blurred image into a sharper image, distort an original image, add characters to an image, convert a continuous-tone image into a line-art image, and produce an animated image from a still image.
With the recent advance of computer-applied technology, there have been developed various arrangements for printing images based on digital image information. These printing systems are effective in processing image information for computer graphics. More specifically, the printing systems photoelectrically read an image carried on a photographic film or an original, introduce the read image information as digital image information into a computer, or produce desired digital image information with a computer according to simulating software, and send the image to an output device such as a printer, a display, or the like.
Known printing systems which employ computers include a thermal printer having a thermal head for thermally reproducing image information on an output sheet and an ink-jet printer for applying an ink jet to an output sheet to reproduce image information. The thermal printer and the ink-jet printer are relatively simple in structure, small in size, and inexpensive to manufacture. However, no thermal and ink-jet printers of sufficient performance are available printing continuous-tone images and highly fine images.
Other computerized printing systems include laser and CRT printers for electrophotographically reproducing images with a laser beam and a cathode-ray tube (CRT). The laser and CRT printers are necessarily large in size and highly costly as they use a laser beam and a CRT. Even if a highly photosensitive material is employed as an output medium, the pixel density which can be obtained of a reproduced image is about 10 lines/mm at most. For the reproduction of finer images, more complex and larger laser and CRT printers must be used to achieve desired printing performance.
As described above, conventional image printing systems such as DPE systems which can easily be handled by amateurs or laymen are not capable of processing images. Available image output systems with computers such as microcomputers are either inexpensive printing systems which cannot print continuous-tone images highly finely, or large and expensive business-use printing systems which can reproduce highly fine images.